


drown all my shadows

by asweetepilogue



Series: Geraskier Octoberfest 2020 [15]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Isolation, Loneliness, M/M, Rescue, Spells & Enchantments, Whump, Whumptober 2020, but they love each other - Freeform, can easily be read as Gen, love conquers all (spells), minor but I felt i should tag it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27301978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asweetepilogue/pseuds/asweetepilogue
Summary: Jaskier wakes up in an empty field of fog. He's alone.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geraskier Octoberfest 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957933
Comments: 2
Kudos: 119





	drown all my shadows

**Author's Note:**

> For whumptober #20: Lost
> 
> Heavily based off of Bly Manor and also the Magnus Archives! Highly recommend both

Jaskier wakes in a fog.

His immediate first impression is, in a way, a lack of impression. The world around him seems featureless. He’s standing, though he doesn’t remember standing up, or walking here in the first place. The fog is thick around his thighs, sending up slow, curling whisps whenever he moves his hands. It’s not much better elsewhere, filling the air and turning the world into an opaque canvas of white. He can’t see beyond his own outstretched hand, everything lost in the gloom. 

It’s unnerving. The world is dampened around him, like there’s cotton stuffed in his ears. Jaskier doesn’t know how he got here. He and Geralt had been together - on a hunt? There had been a cabin - a woman? a witch? - and they’d given chase, following her into the woods beyond… 

He remembers nothing else. His memories are as foggy as his surroundings. One moment he’d been running after Geralt through the forest of craggy, blackened trees, and then next thing he remembers is opening his eyes to this barren landscape. The silence around him is so intense he can hear his own heartbeat rushing in his ears, deafening. 

Half just for something else to listen to, Jaskier says, “Hello?” His voice falls flat in the fog, eaten up by the mist. No one answers. “Geralt? Hello?”

There is nothing. He does a once over of his surroundings once again, but in every direction all he can see is white. It’s almost like being in a box, surrounded by walls on all sides. Feeling panic starts to worm its way into his chest, Jaskier takes a few steps forward. He can’t explain why he feels dread curling through his stomach. It’s just fog, he tells himself. But it doesn’t feel like fog. It feels empty and oppressive and cold, clinging to him and tugging at his clothes and his feet. Something equally cold and empty echoes through Jaskier’s chest, a spot of fearful loneliness that he has always worked hard to keep at bay. 

With no other recourse, he walks. 

There are no features to the landscape that he can distinguish. The fog is endless; he may as well not be moving at all, for all it changes. The ground under his feet is a plain gray dirt, but he has not stumbled upon a single plant or animal since he’d started walking. It feels quickly as if hours have passed, though it also could have been only moments. There is no way to mark the passage of time or how far he’s walked. There’s no sun in the sky; the fact that he can see at all suggests that it must be there, but the fog has swallowed it along with everything else. He can only put one foot in front of the other, occasionally calling out to anyone who might be near. 

It could have been minutes or hours or days, but eventually something does change. He thinks he’s imagined it, at first, but as he moves closer there’s no mistaking. There is a shape in the fog, something just slightly darker than the rest of his surroundings. He can’t make it out, but Jaskier moves towards it with a burst of enthusiasm that borders on fear. As he nears, the fog dissipates enough for him to make out the outline of a figure.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Jaskier says, relief sweeping through him. Even if this person is as lost as he is, at least there will be _someone_ with him. Anything to help assuage the nervous, lonely thing inside him. “I thought I was the only one out here, are you alright?” As he approaches, he can see that it's a woman, her yellow dress faded with age. Jaskier practically runs to close the last few feet between them, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. The dress is soft under his hands, but extraordinary cold. At his touch, the figure shifts like water under his hands, turning in his direction. 

She has no face. 

Jaskier screams, but the sound is consumed by the fog like all the others. He falls back, scrambling away on his ass. The thing that looks like a woman but has no face does not follow him, standing perfectly still. The flat expanse of smooth skin where her features should be does not change in the slightest or react to him in any way. Jaskier stumbles to his feet and runs back into the fog, desperate to escape the horror of it.

His heart does not stop pounding, no matter how much distance he gains. It’s impossible to tell if he _is_ gaining distance. And it isn’t long before he stumbles across another figure, practically running into it. The man is the same, utterly devoid of features, a personless person shaped thing. Jaskier feels the terror gripping him wind tighter and tighter as he turns and immediately finds another faceless figure in his periphery. The shells never react to him, but for some reason that is more frightening than if they’d tried to attack him. 

Jaskier runs, not stopping to assess the shapes he sees blurred through the fog. He’s panicking, he knows, but he can’t stop. He’s alone in this horrible fog with these empty people. There’s no escape; no matter how far he runs, there’s no thinning of the mist. 

Finally he collapses, curling into a tight ball in the thickest part of the fog. Gasping into his knees, Jaskier thinks, frantically, that he might be trapped here forever. Who would look for him? Who would even know _where_ this is? No one at Oxenfurt would think anything of his disappearance, his family haven’t seen him in decades. He has fans who will forget him, patrons who will mourn the loss of his art but move immediately on to newcomers. As he thinks, Jaskier feels the fog closing in tighter around him, kissing his cheeks and clutching at his shoulders. It’s so cold, in a bone deep way that scares him as much as the faceless people. No one will remember him, no one is looking for him -

 _Geralt_ , he thinks. _Geralt will look_.

It’s such a relief he almost cries with it. No matter what Geralt has said in the past, they’re friends, and Geralt is the most noble man Jaskier knows. Geralt would not write off his disappearance. Geralt cares about him, and he will find him. Geralt will come. 

And suddenly, as if summoned by sheer will, Jaskier finds a familiar hand thrust into his face. 

Geralt’s eyes are wide when Jaskier looks up, and it’s so good to see him, so good to see _anyone_ that Jaskier fails to spring immediately into action. Impatiently, Geralt shakes the hand in front of him. “Jaskier,” he says, insistent. “Take my hand.” So Jaskier does. 

Instantly the fog retreats, as if blown back by a strong blast of _aard._ The forest comes into focus around them, the spindly arms of the trees reaching up towards the pale blue sky. Jaskier is pulled to his feet, Geralt’s hands settling on his upper arms as he is given a thorough once over. “Are you alright?” Geralt asks, gruff but clearly concerned. 

Jaskier feels a bit faint, weak in the wake of his terror. “Ah,” he says faintly. “M-Mostly, I think. Yes. What _was_ that, Geralt? Where was I?”

Geralt frowns, glancing around the forest around them. It’s quiet, but in the way forests often are in the fall. If he strains, Jaskier can hear the rustle of animals rooting through the fallen leaves that coat the ground around them, the soft calls of birds and the chirp of squirrels and chipmunks. “The witch was kidnapping people,” Geralt says. “Do you remember?”

Jaskier nods slowly. It’s coming back now, without the fog leaking into his brain and obscuring his thoughts. “People from the village. We chased after her, when she ran from the cottage. She -”

“Hit you with a spell,” Geralt finishes. “Yes. It put you in some kind of… in-between place. Managed to get her to tell me what it was, before I killed her. It feeds off of people’s loneliness. She used it to strengthen her magic.”

“There were others there,” Jaskier says, feeling nauseated as he remembers the blank stares. “They had no faces.”

“Already gone. Eaten up by her magic,” Geralt says, gently. He’s smoothing his hands up and down Jaskier’s arms now, a grounding gesture that Jaskier is grateful for. “It wouldn’t have happened to you. I found you easily, once I got her to tell me the spell. People care about you. The spell only feeds off of lonely people.”

“I knew you would find me,” Jaskier says. He feels tired, exceptionally so. Like the fog sapped up all of his strength, both physical and emotional. “Fuck, Geralt, it was _awful._ ” Unable to help himself, Jaskier leans forward until he’s resting his forehead against Geralt’s shoulder, fingers tangling in the familiar leather armor. 

To his surprise, strong arms come up to hold him tightly. Jaskier sighs, relief sweeping through him as Geralt’s warm palms press into his shoulders. “It’s alright,” Geralt says, in the same tone he uses on Roach when he’s trying not to spook her. Jaskier would take offense if he didn’t feel so much like he might be spooked. “I would never have left you there.”

“I know,” Jaskier says, tired but content. “I would never forget you. I’m never lonely with you.”

Geralt squeezes him tightly, once, before releasing him, though not entirely. One hand still rests on Jaskier’s shoulder, just at the joint of his neck and collarbone. “We should get back to town. Are you alright to walk?”

“Yes,” Jaskier says, though exhaustion rests in every bone. “Bit of a fright, that’s all. I’m perfectly hale and hearty.”

To prove this, Jaskier turns and starts away, not even sure that he’s going in the right direction. A hand catches his wrist as he does, and he turns back to Geralt with a questioning look. He’s met with a soft expression, one he’d rarely seen before on the witcher. “I’m glad,” Geralt says. “That you’re not lonely.”

Jaskier finds himself smiling, warmth flooding through his chest to finally chase off the cold from before. “Never with you, dear. Never with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is my last fic for my halftober series! I wanted to make it a little spooky because I'm posting on Halloween. 
> 
> I had so much fun with this series and I'm so grateful to everyone who came along for the ride. The comments and kudos have been overwhelming and I'm so glad everyone had a good time reading these drabbles. I'll be working on my longer piece, tempo, throughout NaNoWriMo, so look out for that!
> 
> I'm on tumblr! [asweetprologue](asweetprologue.tumblr.com)


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